One thing that many people were skeptical about when the Transformers Power of the Primes Dinobots were revealed was the diminutive stature of Sludge, a Dinobot who many were hoping would be rendered in a larger size for his first G1 accurate classics style figure Sludge is instead a heavy remold of wave 1’s power of the primes Dinobot Slug. While this size difference doesn’t bother me, because I actually like the idea of combining Dinobots, I know some fans don’t share this opinion, but this review will be more focused on what this new interpretation of Sludge is, and not what it could have been, regardless of whether or not the figure would be made better or worse with the supposed alterations.

With that out of the way, I like Power of the primes Sludge a decent amount! Sludge has never been my favorite Dinobot, but I feel like this figure captures his likeness and updates his design for a modern figure very well! First of all, his head sculpt is as Diaclone evocative as ever, and I absolutely love it! Although this figure shares many parts from Slug, new parts are added on to them with mixed results. Firstly the arms look pretty scrawny to me, I really wish they would have given him some thicker ones, especially considering the lower arms are new parts. The legs actually are bulkier, but in that, they are even deeper than Slug’s with the tail sections hanging further off the calves, and I don’t think that is in any way an improvement. This robot mode as a whole is good but definitely just mediocre. It’s well detailed and well articulated with tight joints and a solid construction, but it really doesn’t do anything better than Slug, who I thought was a pretty good deluxe. Sludge’s robot mode is definitely not bad by any means, it’s just not anything above good either, but I still like it. Sludge’s arm and leg modes are a similar story, but I will say I really like Sludge’s dinosaur head jutting out as a shoulder flare.

As far as accessories are concerned, Sludge’s are the exact same as Slug’s. Because of that I like the rifle a lot actually, and the combiner part looks decent as a hand, with the two thumbs actually making sense to me because of their being on a Dinobot combiner, but as I said in my Dreadwind review, I’m really not a fan of its chest armor mode, and I think it’s a relatively weak accessory overall. Personally, I just like to use them as giant fist gauntlets.

Next to Slug, Sludge is about the same height, and I’d say they look pretty good together!

Sludge’s transformation is pretty straightforward, very similar to Slug’s but with a few elements added, like the dinosaur body being made from Sludge’s kibble wings, and the dinosaur head folding over and covering the robot head.

In dinosaur mode, Sludge looks good although he is pretty squat for a dinosaur that is typically really tall! This mode is the only one where the diminished size really bothers me, but really because it has to form a limb, I can’t complain. In addition to that, the beast mode just looks really good! I appreciate the longer tail, and the awesome new head, those and a few other new details just help to make Sludge look like a completely different mold when compared to Slug.

Overall, I like Power of the Primes Dinobot Sludge decently enough. In robot mode, other than a really nice head sculpt in my opinion he doesn’t offer anything that Slug didn’t do just as well or better, but his beast mode I actually like a lot more despite its short stature. Really although you have to get Sludge to complete your Dinobot team, I wouldn’t necessarily say I don’t recommend Sludge on his own, because he’s a perfectly fine figure that is harmless if anything, and is still a fitting adaptation of his beloved G1 likeness for modern design sensibilities.

I totally agree!! If sludge was any more than $15, I don’t think he would be worth it but for that price he’s pretty good! I really wish the dinobots all had both guns and swords for each though, but the prime armor probably means they couldn’t have more than one normal weapon each, but oh well! I’m just happy they made new dinobots at all!

It's interesting to me to see how the pieces get reused for each of the three ground-pounder Dinobots; they're all the same basic pieces, just flipped upside-down or turned backwards.

You can cram a surprising number of Prime Master / Headmaster figures into Sludge. In robot mode the dino neck forms a sort of "knapsack" that one or two guys can ride in. In dino mode, if you flip open the wings then a couple guys can sit in that space.